3 tips to help control your Facebook Feed

Don't let annoying Facebook 'Friends,' apps and notifications ruin your social experience. These three basic Facebook tips and tricks can help you take back control and make the site work for you, instead of against you.

Facebook isn't always fun or rewarding, but you can easily improve your experience by tweaking some basic settings and performing routine maintenance. Carefully curating your News Feed and a more controlled approach to notifications could turn a so-so experience on Facebook into one you'll actually enjoy.

Treat yourself to a "digital cleanse" this summer, and follow these three steps to overhaul and enhance your experience on Facebook.

How to unfollow, elevate Facebook 'Friends'

Have you ever wondered what Facebook would be like if those "Friends" who denigrate your feed with annoying activity and comments just disappeared? The next time a post shows up in your News Feed that you'd rather not see, try the following trick.

Hover over the top-right of the post, select "Unfollow all from [Friend's name]," and that person's posts will no longer appear in your News Feed. You can always go back and follow them again later if you have a change of heart.

If you have certain friends or publishers you'd like to see more of on Facebook, you can go to your News Feed Preference, select People, Pages or Groups, hover over the drop-down menu to the right and then click See First. This option helps you keep up with your favorite Friends so you don't miss anything they share on Facebook.

Filter Facebook noise

There's a lot of noise on Facebook, and invitations to play games or connect with apps you don't even use are among the most annoying and frequent problems. Most users simply decline these requests as they arrive, but there's a better way that can reduce aggravation and effort.

Go to your Facebook Settings, click Blocking on the left-side menu, and then choose if you want to block users, app invites, event invites, apps or pages. To stop specific Friends from sending app invites, type the name of that Friend in the field, and Facebook automatically saves your selection.

You can also completely block all activity from certain apps, friends or pages; just to go your Manage Blocking settings and enter the corresponding name in the appropriate field.

Control Facebook notifications

Facebook provides notifications for all sorts of activities, and they can quickly become a burden if they're not properly managed. It's a good idea to take a few minutes to double-check your notification settings — your phone's battery and inbox might thank you later.

To get started, go to your Facebook profile, click on the globe icon at the top right, and select Settings. From there you can control sounds for specific notification types and choose the notifications you want to receive, including activity directly related to you, such as birthdays, Friends' life events and tags. There are 67 different Facebook activities that have notifications within the app or site, and five notification types on mobile. So before you finish your cleanse be sure to scroll down in your Settings to Email or Mobile, select Edit to see a list of the activities for which you receive notifications, and adjust them as necessary.

CIO.com Senior Writer Matt Kapko specializes in the convergence of social media, mobility, digital marketing and technology. He enjoys traveling and hitting the road with his wife, going to shows, rooting for the 49ers, gardening and reading.